Hansard

I am pleased to be speaking in my eighth debate this week—it has been quite a week. I will try to stick to exports and not confuse it with any of the other topics that we have spoken about.

This is quite a good debate. Thursday afternoon slots are not always well occupied, but this slot—the graveyard slot in the Parliament—is a good one, because it gives us a chance to air issues such as this one in a constructive and often good-humoured manner.

As has been said, Scotland’s exports are some of the finest in the world. We talk about that often, particularly in cross-party groups that have an interest. Whisky and salmon often come up when we meet people overseas and talk about great Scottish products. However, over the years, I have tried to look beyond the traditional Scottish exports of tartan and tweed and look at some of our emerging markets.

Scotland is leading the way in many markets. Undoubtedly, financial services—our expertise and product—is one of our biggest exports. We do not talk about life sciences often. Perhaps it has had a controversial past, but the pharmaceutical industry and other such industries are doing incredibly well in the west of Scotland, too. Our space and satellite industry is another booming area that we should be very proud of. We are producing—and soon we will be launching—satellites that are smaller than a microwave. All that ingenuity originated in Scotland, and that manufacturing is going on in Scotland as well. It should be exported, but not enough of that is happening.

Then there is our green energy production. Some of our experts are going all over the world on business-class flights to teach people in other countries how best to manage offshore wind, carbon storage and capture and battery technology. We should be leading the way in hydrogen and in other forms of renewable energy. Again, there is so much potential in that area, but the conversation too often focuses on the one or two big-ticket items—although I have nothing against the oil and gas industry.

Let us look at some other industries, such as gaming, animation and film production. Those industries are booming, too. Just across the street from the Parliament, there is a company that has done incredibly well in the gaming industry, and parts of Scotland are growing in the media landscape with Hollywood film studios producing films here.

All that is to be admired and acknowledged, because those businesses have got on with it without the intervention of Government. We have talked a lot already this afternoon about where we need the Government to intervene on failing businesses, but those businesses tend to be the businesses of old, the industries of old and the technologies of old.

A small country such as Scotland has an opportunity to be at the forefront—the avant-garde—of new and emerging technologies. That means having a Government strategy—and a strategy is not the same thing as spin. I agree with quite a lot of what is in the Government motion, but it does not contain a huge amount of substance on the wider strategy. There has already been some critique about those lovely coloured-in documents, as Murdo Fraser referred to them.

Businesses are looking for two things from their Government. One is a wider strategy, because a strategy in one sector has to be part of a much bigger picture. It also has to fit in with the transport and infrastructure strategy, the digital connectivity strategy and the energy strategy. How do we keep companies’ costs down as best we can? It needs to sit in the round and be part of the whole.

I will talk about whisky exports, because we have talked a little bit about trade deals, and I want to mention them. We are facing international headwinds. There are things outside of the SNP Government’s control—I understand that—and there are even things outside of the UK Labour Government’s control. We are in an extremely volatile world market. Costs are rising and we are affected by decisions that are being made by other politicians thousands of miles away. When I speak to businesses that export, the two big things that they say they face are rising insurance costs and shipping costs. We all know what is happening in the Red Sea. We have to face up to and work together on those international out-of-control things.

The other thing that I hear from businesses is that what they are absolutely sick and tired of is both of Scotland’s Governments being at constant loggerheads with each other. I understand that some good cross-party working is taking place behind the scenes, but businesses want to see Government ministers from Scotland and Westminster going out into the world hand in hand to say publicly that Scotland is open for business.

There has been a little bit of critique of the six-point export plan, which feels a bit more like a relaunch.